US 9206806

Patent Overview — US 9,206,806 B1

Title: "Solids pump having feed guides"

Patent number / kind code: US 9,206,806 B1 (granted publication; the record also lists US 9,206,806 B1 against application US 14/452,195)

Inventors: Luis Granados; Jeffery Allen Rader

Original assignee: General Electric Company. The listing also shows a later assignment to Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (2019-10-22); the record labels the listed assignees as potentially inaccurate.

Key dates (as listed, and characterized in the record as assumptions): priority date 2014-08-05; filing date 2014-08-05; publication/grant date 2015-12-08; anticipated expiration 2034-08-05. Legal status shown as "Expired - Fee Related."

Purpose: The disclosure concerns solids pumps that convey a solid feed from one industrial process to another. Various industrial processes convey solids whose differing sizes, shapes, consistencies, and operating conditions (temperature, pressure, humidity) can impose large torques and forces on the transport equipment. The stated aim is to direct solid feedstock out of a passage of the solids pump.

Plain-language scope (from the supplied text): The system is a solid feed pump with a housing, a rotor in the housing, a curved passage between rotor and housing, at least one outlet coupled to the curved passage, and multiple solid feed guides extending across the curved passage near the outlet. Each guide directs solid feed toward the outlet and sits at a different circumferential location about the rotor's rotational axis. Embodiments use a staggered arrangement: an initial guide diverts part of the solids while some continue past it, so subsequent guides handle smaller portions and experience less force, flex, or adjustment — allowing them to sit closer to the passage's bottom side (e.g., the hub's outer surface) without rubbing. Alternative embodiments describe first and second guides whose ends are separated from the hub's lateral surface by differing minimal or radial offset distances, with the first exceeding the second. FIG. 1 is a schematic of such a pump; FIG. 2 a cutaway perspective; FIG. 3 a cross-sectional side view with multiple guides. The text mentions the pump may be a Posimetric® pump made by General Electric.

What the excerpt does not establish: It supplies no claims text, no complete description, no abstract, no figures, no prior-art references, and no examiner reasoning. It therefore cannot establish claim scope, validity, patentability, or the accuracy of any listed date, status, or assignee.

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9206806/en